LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Slielf 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE WORDS 



FROM AND TO THE CROSS 



/iDebftations 

FOE HOLY WEEK AND GOOD FEIDAY 



E E V. A'f ;-^Af^Il ALL 

MISSION PKIEST OF THE SOCIETY OF S. JOHll THE EVANGELIST 



NEW YORK 
JAMES POTT & CO., PUBLISHERS 
14 AND 16 AsTOR Place 
1891 > 



CopTEiGHT, 1891, By 
JAMES POTT & CO. 



1, 




TROWS 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
NEW YORK. 



PKEFAOE. 



The Meditations in this book were given in the 
Mission Church of S. John the Evangelist, Boston ; 
those on the words spoken by our Lord from the 
Cross, at the Three Hours' Service on Good Friday, 
1890 ; those on the words spoken to or of Him on 
the Cross, on the other days of lioly Week, 1888. 

The Author ventures to think that in both 
courses of Meditations a somewhat wider range of 
thought and application is taken than is usual in 
such addresses, while at the same time an harmoni- 
ous view of the Passion in some of its many aspects 
is preserved. 

Mission House of S. John Evangelist, Boston. 
Epiphany, 1891. 



EERATUM. 

Introductory address belongs to Good Friday Meditations. 



COI^TEETS. 



HOLY WEEK MEDITATIONS. 

The Words Addressed to our Lord on the Gross, 

PAGE 

Introductory 7 

I. The Word of Accusation 11 

II. The Word of Derision and Scoffing 21 

III. The Word of Prayer 29 

IV. The Word of Misunderstanding 38 

V. The Word of Acknowledgment 46 

GOOD FRIDAY MEDITATIONS. 

The Sewn Words Spoken our Lord from the Gross. 

First Word : The True Regard of Sinners 53 

Second Word : Of Penitents 56 

Third Word : Of Friends 60 

Fourth Word: Of Sin 63 

Fifth Word : Of Pain 67 

Sixth Word: Of Work 71 

Seventh Word : God's Regard of Man and Man's 

OF God 75 



mTEODUOTOET. 



1. In a hymn of Dr. Neale's for All Saints/ writ- 
ten shortly before his death, he turns to the differ- 
ent choirs of the Saints — the Martyrs, Confessors, 
Virgins, Doctors — asking of each the means by 
which they attained their sanctity and fulfilled their 
several vocations. The reply of each group is of 
course, in effect, Through Christ that strengthened 
us ; He was in us the hope of glory, the power of 
victory. The Doctors, the great champions of the 
Faith, are begged to tell us how the lore to gain, by 
which they established the Truth, and crushed down 
heresy amain. This is their answer : 

* * In tlie Cross we found our pulpit, 

In the Seven Great Words our lore ; 

Dying gift of dying Master, 

Which, once uttered all was o'er ; 

Pillars seven of sevenfold wisdom, 
Sion's safeguard evermore." 



Christ's own martyrs, valiant cohort," in Original 
Hyrnns and Sequences, by Rev. J. M. Neale, D.D. (Hayes.) 



8 



mTRODUCTORY. 



It is somewhat in this light that I would ask you 
this Good Friday to listen to the Words of our 
Lord from the Cross, as declaring the true regard — 
God's and man's — of the chief objects that we have 
to meet in the world, the things and persons with 
which we have to do : Sinners, Penitents, Friends, 
Sin, Pain, Work. The true regard of each of these 
we will try to learn, viewed from the stand-point of 
the Cross. 

2. God's view and man's, I say. Jesus is God 
and man. Ever from the moment of the Incarna- 
tion, as He lay cradled all lowly in Bethlehem, or in 
Mary's arms, or stretched on the hard bed of the 
Cross, we worship Him as true God and true Man. 
He is the Word made flesh, God of the essence of the 
Father, revealed in human flesh, showing forth the 
Divine perfections, translating them into language — 
the language of action — intelligible to us, declaring 
and making known the invisible God.^ And Man 
He is of the substance of His mother, the ideal, pat- 
tern man, the true Eepresentative of Humanity. 
Our Lord as the Incarnate Word, the Son of God 
and the Son of Man, is the revelation at once of what 
God is, and of what man, made in God's image, 
should be. The centurion's exclamation declared the 



' S. Jolm i. 14 ; 2 Cor. iv. 4. 



INTEODUCTORY. 



9 



truth, a fuller truth than he recognized, Truly this 
was God's Son, a Kighteous Man.^ From Him we 
would learn, and from His utterances on the Cross 
unspeakably solemn. All bare witness to His gra- 
cious words. None ever spake like this Man. 

3. For what purpose do we listen to these Words ? 
That we may arm ourselves with the same mind. 
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak- 
eth. We would learn His mind. We gather round 
the Cross not for the stirring of idle sentiment, 
nor to offer sympathy. We would not listen, and 
smite our breasts and return. We would render the 
homage of our obedience. We would hear these 
Words, and keep them, and do them. Not do the 
same things. We do not expect to be in the same 
circumstances ; we are never likely to be exposed to 
bodily torture. But we would arm ourselves with 
the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.^ 



1 S. Mark XV. 39 ; S. Lnke xxiii. 47. 

2 1 S. Pet. iY. 1. 



HOLT WEEK MEDITATIO^^S. 

The Words Spoken to, or of, our Lord on the Cross. 



I. 

THE WOED OF ACCUSATION. 

*'Tliis is Jesus the King of the Jews." — S. Matthew 
xxvii. 37. 

As on Good Friday we are accustomed to listen 
to and ponder on the Words spoken by our Blessed 
Lord/rom the Cross, so during this Holy Week let 
us meditate on the Words spoken to or of our Lord 
as He hangs upon the Cross. Five such sayings 
there are, each distinct from the others, each ut- 
tered by different persons or classes of persons. 

1. The Word of Accusation — the Title written by 
Pilate : ''This is Jesus the King of the Jews." 

2. The Word of Taunt and Scoffing — uttered by 
the Chief Priests : '' He saved others ; himself he 
cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him 
now come down from the cross, and we will believe 
him. He trusted in God ; let him deliver him now, 



12 



WOEDS TO THE CROSS. 



if lie will have him : for he said, I am the Son of 
God." ' 

3. The Word of Prayer — uttered by the penitent 
malefactor, who in the midst of all that pain and 
ignominy was able to see a real royalty in his Fel- 
low-Sufferer, and prays, Lord, remember me when 
thou comest into thy kingdom." ^ 

4. Tlie Word of Misunderstanding — spoken by the 
Koman soldiers, w^hen our Lord uttered that bitter 
cry, telling of His anguish and desolation, " Eli, 
Eli, lama sabachthani ? " and the Roman soldiers, 
ignorant of the Hebrew language, caught at the first 
syllables and thought that as a superstitious Jew He 
was invoking Elijah : This man calleth for Elias." ^ 

5. The Word of Acknowledgment — called forth 
from the centurion, who watched by the Cross, and 
saw the moral majesty of this Sufferer, His patience 
and meekness, and saw, too, the awful portents which 
accompanied His death, when the sun hid his face, 
and the earthquake rent the rocks : Truly this 
was the Son of God." ^ Indeed the claim He made 
was right and true. He was a supernatural person, 
God's representative. 

We will meditate each day on one of these five 
sayings, and will try, with God's help, to think of 
what they meant as expressing the thoughts of those 
who stood round the Cross, and to hear their echo 
now in those who gaze on that wondrous mystery. 



1 S. Matt, xxvii. 42, 43. 
3 S. Matt, xxvii. 47. 



2 S. Luke xxiii. 42. 
4 S. Matt, xxvii. 54. 



THE WOED OF ACOUSATIOIS'. 13 



First, the Word of Accusation, the Title placed 
over His Head upon the Cross : " Jesus of Nazareth, 
the King of the Jews." It was customary that the 
charges against a criminal, the ground on which he 
was condemned, should be written out in brief on a 
tablet which was hung round his neck as he was led 
to execution. Pilate only followed out this plan. 
This was the charge the Jews and Chief Priests 
had brought before the Governor, when they 
dragged Jesus to the judgment-seat. He says, He 
is Messiah. At first they had spoken vaguely of 
His being a malefactor," but Pilate demanded, 
What definite charge do you bring ? ^ We found 
him (they say) perverting the nation, and forbid- 
ding to give tribute to Csesar, saying that he him- 
self is Christ, a King." Afterwards they mention 
the religious charge of blasphemy. " We have a 
law, and by our law he ought to die, because he 
made himself the Son of God." ^ And Pilate was 
the more afraid when he heard that claim ; it fitted 
in with the dream of his wife, with the majesty and 
moral grandeur which he had already recognized in 
the Man before him ; but officially he could take no 
notice of it. The civil charge is pressed. This was 
Pilate's business. " If thou let this man go, thou art 
not Caesar's friend : whosoever maketh himself a king 
speaketh against Caesar." ^ The Jews threatened to 
appeal to Cgesar, and that the Governor could not 



1 S. John xviii. 29. 
3 S. Johu xix. 7. 



2 S. Luke xxiii. 2. 
^ S. Jolm xix. 12. 



14 



"WOSDS TO THE CEOSS. 



face. Pilate seeks favor with his imperial master, 
and he dare not incur suspicion of unfaithfulness to 
him. So he condemns Jesus to death as a rebel, a 
false king, though he knew that He was innocent. 
Then, partly in mockery and partly to have his re- 
venge on the hated Jews and their leaders, he writes 
the accusation, '*This is the King of the Jews." In 
mingled scorn and pity he had asked Jesus, Art 
thou the King of the Jews?" This harmless, de- 
serted man, this enthusiastic fanatic — a pretty king 
indeed ! a fine rival to my imperial master ! But 
the Jews have accused Him of claiming to be a 
king, and Pilate will show his contempt for their 
nation by calling this harmless enthusiast their 
king. 

I. Think of the injustice of the accusation. Our 
Lord had repeatedly refused to be made a king. 

After the miraculous feeding of the five thousand 
the people would have taken Him hj force and 
made Him a king in the enthusiasm stirred by the 
miracle in the multitudes on their way to celebrate 
the Paschal feast." They would have put Him at 
the head of that great caravan, and gone on to 
Jerusalem, prepared to fight for Him against the 
Koman usurper. He had sent away His disciples 
lest they too should be carried away by this desire 
of the multitude, and Himself had retired to the 
mountain-top to spend the night in prayer. It was 
the disappointment of the hopes the people had 



^ S. John vi. 15. 



THE WOKD OF ACCUSATIOIS^. 



15 



formed on Palm Sunday, when they welcomed Him 
to the city with Hosannas, as a king coming in the 
name of the Lord/ that had brought about the 
change to the shout of Good Friday, Crucify 
Him ! " They had thought, those Galilean peas- 
ants, that now with Him for their leader it would be 
an opportunity to make headway against the power 
of Eome, and when He failed to rise up to the dig- 
nity they would thrust upon Him, then they turned 
against Him.^ He told them of His spiritual king- 
dom, but for such a kingdom they had no desire, and 
in their chagrin they left Him in the hands of His 
enemies, the Chief Priests, and allowed them to ac- 
cuse Him of making a claim for not making which 
He had forfeited their allegiance. 

How great the injustice with which He was 
treated ! How bitter His pain and disappoint- 
ment ! And how true His sympathy with all who 
suffer like injustice ! O suffering soul ! misunder- 
stood in thy family, maligned among friends, look 
to Jesus and learn like Him to commit thyself in 
calmness to Him that judge th righteously. ^ Be 
content to be unknown, or mis-known — unknown to 
earth, if well known to Heaven. All that is intended 
for insult shall redound to thy true glory, even as it 
was with Him. He is executed on the public high- 
way, that all may read the Title, and know Who it is 

' S. Mark xi. 9, 10 ; S. Luke xx. 38. 

2 See tliis cliange of popular feeling wonderfully delineated 
in Ben-Hur, book viii. , chapters v. and vi. 
3 1 S. Pet. ii. 23. 



16 



WORDS TO THE CEOSS. 



that suffers, The King of the Jews.'' So shall thy 
character be vindicated. Thy meekness and patience 
shall conform thee to th}^ Lord and make thee dear 
to Him. And in the day of His manifestation with 
His Saints thou shalt be found near Him. 

Let us be prepared for the misunderstandings to 
which Christ's Church and religion may be exposed. 
Men would use them to help on some worldly 
scheme, or turn them to account for some political 
purpose ; but shrink back from simple obedience to 
the law of life which He lays down, from following 
in His steps, saying, We will not have this Man to 
reign over us." 

Our Lord does indeed come to establish a king- 
dom far greater than that His enemies imagined. 
He came to instil principles that would render the 
tyranny of Rome harmless. He came to reign over 
hearts in love, a rule far grander than that of exter- 
nal force. A King He is, a King "Whose service is 
perfect freedom ; a King Who frees His subjects 
from the bondage of sin, the tyranny of Satan, the 
oppression of the World. 

H. So consider further the truth of the accusation. 
The Chief Priests beg that the sentence may be al- 
tered. Write not, they say to Pilate, " The King of 
the Jews ; but that he said, I am King of the Jews." 
But Pilate would not be dictated to. Insolently and 
tersely he replies, ''What I have written I have 
written."^ Not a word will I change. You asked 



ig. John xix. 31, 22, 



THE WOED OF ACCUSATION". 



17 



me to condemn Him as the King of the Jews, and 
so I have written. Another concerned in our Lord's 
condemnation had unconsciously prophesied, Caia- 
phas the High Priest, when he said it was expedient 
that one man should die for the people.^ Pilate now 
likewise utters an unconscious prophecy when ho 
inscribes the Title. He wrote truly, This is the 
King of the Jews." 

The Angel of the Annunciation had declared, "He 
shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the 
Highest : and the Lord God shall give unto him 
the throne of his father David." ^ Mary's Child 
was worshipped by Eastern sages as well as by 
the shepherds of Bethlehem. That tender Plant 
was indeed the Branch (the new Shoot — which is 
the meaning of Nazarene ") growing up in obscur- 
ity but destined to exercise a world-wide dominion ; ^ 
before Whose throne at the last all nations shall be 
gathered to receive their final doom. Meanwhile 
He exercises a mighty sway over hearts w^hich He 
draws unto Himself. "King of the Jews" He is, 
the heir of David's throne, but not only their King. 
He comes to establish His universal Church, in 
which all nations shall find their home, and each 
fulfil its own destiny. Of this Pilate uncon- 
sciously prophesied when he wrote the Title in 
three languages, that all might read it. It was 
written in Hebrew, that the people might under- 



1 S. John xi. 49-52 ; xviii. 14. ^ S. Luke i. 32. 

3 S. Matt. ii. 23 ; Isa. xi. 1 ; liii. 2 ; Zecli. iii. 8. 
2 



18 



"VYORDS TO THE CEOSS. 



stand ; in Latin, the language of the Eoman court 
and of the soldiers ; and in Greek, for the benefit of 
foreigners present for the Passover. It was intend- 
ed for mockery, but it told of the universal charac- 
ter of Christ's kingdom. The City of God is built 
at the confluence of three streams — of Hebrew 
prophecy, of Greek literature and philosophy, of 
Eoman organization and empire. 

In Hebrew, Greek, and Latin is the Title written, 
that all nations may recognize their interest in the 
Crucified King. In Holy Week we pray to Mary's 
Child, the Seed of Abraham, that He would have 
mercy on His own favored people and on the Gentile 
nations who know Him not ; that He would remove 
all blindness and hardness of heart, and that He 
would bring back to the way of truth all those who 
live in darkness and error ; that He, our Shepherd 
King, would fetch all wanderers home to His flock, 
that they may be saved among His true Israelites. 

III. Once more think of the spiritual character of 
the King and of His Kingdom, He was rejected by 
His subjects, not because He was unworthy of His 
kingdom but because they were unworthy of Him. 
Pilate acknowledged Him as a King, and we as we 
gaze upon the moral glory of His Passion recognize 
One Who is indeed King of men,'' Holiest among the 
mighty, mightiest among the holy." Yes, we bow 
before His Cross, because we recognize the Lord of 
glory there reigning on His throne. The moral 
glory, the grace and truth He there exhibits are 
such as indeed belong to the Onl^^-begotten of the 



THE WORD OF ACCUSATIOl^. 



19 



Father.^ We pray Thee, blessed Jesu, to exercise 
Thy sovereign power over our hearts. To Thee we 
would bend our intellect, that in Thee we may attain 
true knowledge and wisdom ; to Thee we yield our 
affections, that from Thee we may learn true love ; 
to Thee we offer our will, that it may beat in har- 
mony with Thine. Think of the supernatural char- 
acter of the kingdom that the Crucified inaugurates. 
His throne, the Cross ; His sceptre , a reed ; His 
Crown, of thorns. He was teaching man the vanity 
of worldly wealth and honor ; that man's dignity 
consists in what he is, not in what he has ; that his 
greatness and worth is to be estimated not by the 
opinion of those round about, but by his own 
strength of character. Jesus showed Himself the 
true and perfect Man, to "Whom the greatest and the 
lowest can do most loving homage. If we are to be 
subjects of His Kingdom we must learn its standards. 
Our nobility must be such as belongs to the inner 
man ; our treasure such as moth and rust cannot 
corrupt ; our glory not in worldly honor and human 
appreciation, but such as God, Who seeth in secret 
and trieth the heart, will bestow. 

So let us meditate on the Title on the Cross, 
considering — 

(1) The injustice of the accusation, and learn 
humbly and meekly to bear misunderstanding and 
misrepresentation : 

(2) The truth unconsciously proclaimed in what 



1 S. Jolm i. 14 ; 1 Cor. ii. 8. 



20 WOEDS TO THE CP.OSS. 



Pilate wrote—- How indeed He is the King, and we 
are to bring all the faculties of our nature to bow 
before Him, and by our prayers, our alms, and our 
influence to bring others to acknowledge His King- 
dom : 

(3) And ask that we may know the true standard 
and measures of His Kingdom, and so may judge 
with true and righteous judgment. 



Psalm ii. 



n. 



THE WORD OF DERISION AND SCOFFING. 

He saved others ; himself he cannot save. If he be the 
King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and 
we will believe him. He trusted in God ; let him deliver 
him now, if he will have him : for he said, I am the Son of 
God." — S. Matthew xxvii. 39-43. 

Yesterday we thought of the Title, the Accusation 
prepared by Pilate and affixed to the Cross. It 
marked out the charge for which sentence was 
passed upon Jesus, the charge of sedition, forbid- 
ding to give tribute to Caesar, claiming Himself to 
be the King of the Jews. That was the only charge 
of which the Roman Governor could take cognis- 
ance, and sentence on it was extorted from him by 
the Chief Priests. Now we come to the second Say- 
ing addressed to our Lord upon the Cross. All 
these Sayings are representative Sayings, and all are 
spoken by representative persons ; each expressing 
a different relation to our Lord. Pilate is the rep- 
resentative of Worldly Power, and speaks of Him 
as a usurping King, a feeble rival to his imperial 
master. He points in mockeiy to the Nazarene, 

Behold the King of the Jews." 

The taunt uttered by the Chief Priests is of a dif- 
ferent character. " Come down from the Cross, and 
we will believe. He saved others : himself he can- 



22 



WOEDS TO THE CKOSS. 



not save. He trusted in God : let him deliver him 
now if he will have him ; for he said, I am the Son 
of God." They mocked Him as a pretender to Mes- 
sianic dignity. It was on the religious charge of 
blasphemy that they had determined to put Him to 
death. They trumped up the political charge to 
satisfy Pilate, but that was not the charge on which 
they had condemned Him in their own council. 
The High Priest said, I adjure thee by the living- 
God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the 
Son of God. Jesus replied. Thou hast said. Here- 
after shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right 
hand of power, and coming in the clouds of Heaven. 
Then the High Priest, pretending that his feelings 
were shocked and outraged, rent his clothes, and 
said, "What need of further witnesses ? ' It was on 
the charge of blasphemy, for unwarranted religious 
claims that He was condemned, and for that they 
mock and jeer and jibe at Him hanging on the 
Cross. Mark, it was not the people but the Chief 
Priests that mocked. Those that passed by indeed 
wagged their heads and reviled Him ; but they were 
put up to it by the Chief Priests. They had gone 
among the crowd at Pilate's judgment-seat and 
whispered to them to demand Barabbas instead of 
Jesus, and now others take up the cry they lead. We 
are to think of these taunts as they sounded in His 
ears, and as they expressed the mind of those who 
uttered them, and as they find their echo in all ages. 



1 S, Matt. xxvi. 63-66. 



WOED OF DEF.ISIOISr AND SCOFFIlsrG. 23 



1. Think, then, of the grief of our Lord as He heard 
them, accentuated by the fact that the speakers were 
His own official representatives. The taunt would 
have been a comparatively little thing if said by the 
Roman soldiers or by Pilate, but from those whom 
He had placed in authority it was a most bitter 
pain to His tender Heart. "He came unto his own, 
and his own received him not." ^ He had foretold 
this detail of His Passion to His disciples as they 
went up to Jerusalem where He must suffer. "The 
Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests 
and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to 
death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to 
mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him.'' ^ Yes, 
His own representatives, who should have prepared 
the people to welcome Him by expounding the 
prophecies, and showing their fulfilment in Him, 
they stirred up the people to demand His death ; 
they mocked Him ! 

When we receive no sympathy from those with 
whom we live, and with whom we would fain be at 
peace, or when those whose allies and instruments 
we would be fail to understand us, or when the pur- 
ity of our motives is questioned — we suffer the like 
grief. The heart is sore just in proportion to its 
own generosity. And what was the pain and grief 
to Jesus when thus reviled by His own ministerial 
representatives ! Think of His being charged with 
blasphemy against His Father. That was a far 



^ S. John i. 11. 



S. Matt. XX. 18, 19. 



24 



WOEDS TO THE CROSS. 



deeper grief than the accusation of being a mock 
king. That would have been mere folly. Pilate 
thought of Him as a harmless enthusiast, a dreamer. 
But by the Chief Priests He is condemned on a 
charge of heresy. He, the Witness to the Truth, 
Who referred all He did to the Father, and said He 
came only to do His will ^ — that He should be ac- 
cused of usurping unlawfully and illegitimately the 
position that belonged to Him ! That He should be 
scorned as a Samaritan, as possessed by an evil spir- 
it, He Who came to destroy the works of the Devil ! * 
And oh ! the pain still greater to the Heart of 
Jesus to know that all the people were shaken in 
their belief in His innocence, w^hen they saw that af- 
ter these taunts He was left to die, shown (as they 
thought) to be rejected of God. 

> Ah ! let us think of the grief of these revilings, 
remembering from whom they came, and we will 
take consolation when we are charged with disloyal- 
ty to the Church we love, to the principles we hold 
most dear. Indeed, Blessed Lord, there is no grief 
in Avhich Thou canst not extend to us Thy sym- 
pathy. 

H. Go on to consider the taunt itself. See how it 
really pointed to the manifestation of our Lord's 
glory. It was because their eyes were blinded, even 
though they held the position of religious teachers, 
that they recognized not His glory when hanging 



1 S. Jolin V. 19, 30 ; vi. 38 ; xii. 49. 

2 S John viii. 48 ; IS. Jolin iii. 8. 



WORD 01? DERISIO]^T A^^D SCOFFING. 25 



on the Cross. These secularized ecclesiastics were 
judging according to their own heart. 

Blessed Lord, if Thou in justice hadst hearkened 
to that challenge, and come down from the Cross to 
manifest Thy power, our salvation would have been 
lost. When Thou didst save others, Thou wouldest 
not save Thyself. Thine enemies say, Thou canst 
not ; " and we say, Thou wouldest not." It was by 
Thy self-sacrifice that Thou didst teach men a disin- 
terested love. It was then Thou didst teach us true, 
generous love for others. Thou didst save us, be- 
cause Thou wert willing to lay down Thine ovv^n life. 
By Thine obedience unto death Thou didst atone 
for man's disobedience, and thus didst rescue us. 
Thou didst show Thy Divine Sonship by not com- 
ing down from the Cross. An earthly Messiah would 
have sought to make some external manifestation of 
his power, but in Thy heroic fortitude and enduring 
patience Thou didst show a splendor of moral char- 
acter far surpassing the worldly conception of those 
who mocked Thee. 

Satan in the Wilderness approached our Lord 
with the like temptation. If thou be the Son of 
God, command that these stones be made bread." ^ 
And because He was the Son of God He would ac- 
complish the fast, waiting upon His Father ; He 
would not satisfy the craving of the lower nature, 
and .in the abstinence from any such gratification 
He would manifest His Divine Sonship. 



1 S. Matt. iv. 3. 



26 



WORDS TO THE CROSS. 



Even so with the Church in every age : men mock 
and sneer at her poverty, her want of organization 
and earthly power ; they ask, Can this be the Church 
of the living God — with all these divisions and anom- 
alies, these spots and blots and stains ? But God 
never promised on earth a Church without spot, or 
wrinkle, or any such thing. This is to be the glo- 
rious condition of the Church at the last. Here she 
is proved to be really the Bride of Christ by shar- 
ing His lot, for better and for worse. ^ She is shown 
to be His not by being endowed with great earthly 
gifts but by her likeness to her Lord. Founded on 
a Kock, but planted in the sea ; upheld in life, 
though crucified in weakness, God delivers not His 
Church from suffering, so as to ward it off, but He 
delivers His people out of suffering, so that we are 
brought forth perfected thereby. 

HI. Think once more how the taunt is continually 
repeated by us and to us. 

1. We so often think that if only we are trying to 
be on God's side we have a right to be exempted from 
crosses. At any rate from spiritual temptations, 
from dryness in prayer, from evil imaginations. 
Why so ? Is not this the same sort of conception 
that led the Chief Priests to say, ''If he be the Son of 
God, let God deliver him now, if he will have him." 
God's love does not exempt us, any more than it did 
Christ, from trials and sorrow. '' Great are the 
troubles of the righteous : but the Lord delivereth 



1 Eph. V. 27 ; Rev. xix. 7, 8. 



WORD OF DERISIO:sr AISTD SCOFFII^O. 27 



him out of all." ^ God does not exempt us now in 
a fallen world from trials. He shows His care in 
supporting us in trials. The shadow of the Cross 
we must expect to fall on those nearest and dearest 
to Him. Mary, His beloved Mother, stands by the 
Cross, the representative of the Church ; and those 
who aspire to high places in His Kingdom are asked 
if they can drink of the cu]3 of which He has drunk. 
I will not expect, then, in taking any fresh onward 
step to be exempt from trials. I will nerve myself 
to meet any sorrow, knowing that I shall be sup- 
ported in it, that He will not suffer any temptation 
beyond my strength to try me. He Who has con- 
quered/or me will conquer in me. 

2. And the same taunt we may think of as ad- 
dressed to us by the worldly spirit calling us to 
come down from the Cross. It may be in the secu- 
lar newspaper of the day, or by the voice of a friend : 
" Come down, show thyself to be the child of God 
by enjoying greater liberty. God's child surely will 
not be cramped in thought by the narrow limits of 
creeds, in life by rule, mortification, or restraint. 
Claim your portion of the good things of the world ; 
enjoy life, allow free play to all the faculties of 
your nature." So speaks the worldly spirit. We 
reply, with Jesus : ''Because I am God's Son, and 
have a higher life, therefore I am comparatively in- 
different to merely worldly pleasure and honor. I 
am ready to sacrifice that which may be attractive. 



^Ps. xxxiv. 19. 



28 



WOKDS TO THE CEOSS. 



especially those things I know to be dangerous to 
my higher interests, lest I should lose my firm grasp 
on what is my true inheritance. Because I am God's 
child my heart is set on things above, and I am in- 
difi'erent to the joys and sorrows that belong to this 
world. I am bent on so passing through things 
temporal that I lose not the things eternal. Be- 
cause I am God's child I am prepared to follow 
along the Eoyal Eoad the Master has trodden be- 
fore. I hear His voice. If thou wilt be My disciple, 
take up thy cross ; that is the path that is marked 
by My footprints, that is the narrow way that lead- 
eth to Life eternal. 



Psalm Ixix. 



m. 

THE WOKD OF PKAYEE. 

**Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy King- 
dom." — S. Luke xxiii. 42. 

What a blessed contrast it is to turn from the 
Words addressed to our Lord on the Cross which 
we have akeadj considered to the Word we have to 
consider now ! We have thought of Pilate's mock- 
ing sentence, This is the King of the Jews ; " and 
of the words of taunt and sneer with which the 
Chief Priests and Eulers, secularized ecclesiastics, 
reviled our Lord as a false Messiah — " He trusted 
in God : let him deliver him now if he will have 
him.'' S. Matthew and S. Mark tell us that at the 
first the malefactors who were crucified with Him 
reviled Him also.* S. Luke, giving a fuller account, 
tells us that after a while one of the malefactors 
turned to our Lord with this prayer, and to that 
one we will now direct our thoughts.^ 

The malefactors had eagerly seized the stupefyiDg 
draught which our Lord refused. He would not dull 
His consciousness in the struggle against sin, but 
would keep His powers to the very end. But they 
are eager to save themselves all the pain they can. 



1 S. Matt, xxvii. 44 ; S. Mark xv. 32. 

2 S. Luke xxiii. 39-43. 



30 



WORDS TO THE CEOSS. 



When the nails were driven into their hands they 
could hardly feel the pain from stupefaction ; but 
after a while they, in half-consciousness — just as one 
coming out of ether hears half in dream and half in 
realit}^ — catch snatches of what is said around the 
Cross, and they take up the jeers of the Chief Priests 
and cast the same in His teeth," 

We are not to think of them as being simple 
thieves ; " robbers is the right translation. They 
were wild, bold outlaws, such as infested the Gali- 
lean hills, and who with their robbery joined a 
rough patriotism, ready to rise up in revolt against 
the foreign power of Home. They were members of 
such a band as that of which Barabbas had been 
chief, their hand against every man and every man's 
hand against them. Now they have come to execu- 
tion and are going to brave it out to the last. But 
one of them, struck by such a sight as he had never 
seen before, is moved. He had seen, perhaps, our 
Lord in that imperturbable meekness before His ac- 
cusers that had moved even Pilate.^ He had heard 
Pilate declare that he found no fault in Him.^ But 
the robbers had not then taken much account of 
Jesus, bent on learning their own fate. But this 
one had w^alked by our Lord's side on the road to 
Calvary, and had heard him speak to the daughters 
of Jerusalem, bidding them weep not for Him but 
for that which was coming upon the doomed city.^ 



1 S. Mark XV. 3-5. ^ j^^^ ^ix. 4. 

3 S. Luke xxiii. 27-32. 



THE WORD OF PRAYER. 



31 



He had seen Jesus refuse the stupefying drug, and 
had heard His prayer for His murderers, and then 
he had become stupefied himself and heard no more. 
Now recovering consciousness, all he had seen be- 
fore passes through his mind. He turns to gaze 
upon his fellow - sufferer and sees a wondrous 
moral majesty beaming from His face amid all the 
pain and humiliation. What manner of man is this? 
— he thinks — w^hat if this should be the Messiah! 
His companion utters some special word of reviling, 
such as he before had joined in, and he turns 
to him, rebuking him. Dost not thou fear God, 
seeing thou art in the same condemnation ? and we 
indeed justly ; for we receive the due reward of our 
deeds : but this man hath done nothing amiss. 
Pilate said so, and since then he has done nothing ! 
Then he turned to our Lord, with only a dim con- 
ception of Whom he was addressing. Perhaps some 
old teaching of the synagogue service comes before 
him, some scripture prophecy, such as Isaiah's de- 
scription of the Messiah, as one who will come to 
heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, to 
set at liberty them that are bruised.^ Was not this 
the kind of work this Man had been doing ? He had 
looked indeed for an earthly Messiah, but what 
matters now any earthly consideration ? The idea 
of a spiritual deliverance comes before him, he has 
a vision of a spiritual kingdom. He prays, Lord, 



1 Isa. Ixi. 1 ; S. Luke iv. 16-21. 



32 



WOEDS TO THE CEOSS. 



remember me when Thou comest into Thy king- 
dom. 

I. Think of the lesson of the contrast. The very 
pubhcans and harlots enter into the kingdom of 
God before the Chief Priests and Elders/ There is 
no blinding of the eyes here through envy. The 
Chief Priests had every tittle of evidence that this 
poor outlaw had. Pilate saw that they w^ere blinded 
wdth envy. They steeled and hardened their hearts. 
There were moral obstacles to prevent their seeing 
the truth. The}^ would not take the evidence of 
His miracles or listen to His words. ^ They had not 
the right dispositions. Consider the contrast be- 
tween this poor robber and those who should have 
led the people. They had studied the prophecies, 
and yet they turn against Him, for the darkness of 
their own hearts cannot receive Him, while evidence 
far less than was offered to them convinces the poor 
outcast. So it is nov/. Some rich, favored nation, 
boastful of its civilization, really drawing its vitality 
from the Christianity with which it is surrounded, 
rejects Christ's truths, w^hile some poor, down-trod- 
den race, acknowledging its own inability to rise up 
to higher things, eagerly accepts Him. He ever 
comes, not to call the righteous but sinners to re- 
pentance. On the Cross, as always, it is the rich 
He sends empty away, but the hungry He fills with 
good things.^ On the Cross He is seen as the good 



1 a Matt. xxi. 31. 2 s joi^ii 36_47 . 47. 
3 S. Matt. ix. 12, 13 ; S. Luke i. 53. 



THE WOED OF PEAYEE. 



33 



physician healing the sick, while they that are whole 
have no need of the physician. O blessed Jesu, 
break down within us all pride and envy, all unwill- 
ingness to acknowledge ourselves mistaken, to sub- 
mit to Thy holy will ; do away in us with all moral 
obstacles that bind and blind, that so we may be 
prepared to acknowledge Thy truth. 

n. And then think, too, how this Word sounded 
in the ears of our blessed Lord. What a refresh- 
ment amid the taunts of His enemies to hear this 
prayer — the faith dim, but the prayer very earnest 
and sincere — Lord, remember me." He is making 
an act of faith according to his opportunities, making 
the best prayer he can. Our Lord is refreshed and 
consoled. He begins to see of the travail of His 
soul, and is satisfied.^ The words come like drops 
of water to the parched earth. Now, lifted up. He 
begins to draw all men unto Him.^ His sweet 
forbearance conquers. He triumphs in the midst of 
suffering. Love conquers all. God had tried, if we 
may so say, by the terrors of the Law to subdue 
man, and the Law had failed. He places HimseK in 
the midst of fallen humanity in a condition of suf- 
fering to draw out man's pity, and so He wins his 
love. Think of the consolation of Jesus, and think 
of this as marking out the law of all Christian con- 
quest, by meekness and self-sacrifice, by forbearance 
rather than by rigorous reproach, for any who will 
win souls to truth and virtue, to Christ and God. 



1 Isa. liii. 11. 
3 



2 S. John xii. 32, 



34 



WOEDS TO THE CROSS. 



Only in His way can we, can the Church, hope to 
reproduce His victory. 

Ah, blessed Jesu ! this is the law of Thy con- 
quest. The Cross conquers, because the Cross is 
the well of love. We pray that lifted up afresh in 
Passiontide Thou wilt touch hearts with Thy love. 
Kindle our souls with true devotion ; renew the de- 
votion we have felt in past years, only let there be 
true devotion and less of mere feeling ; give us the 
earnest desire to do and bear for Thee, Who hast 
done and borne so much for us. And bless, we 
pray Thee, all preaching of the Cross in foreign 
lands, and by those who tell of Thy love to the 
heathen. Speak through their lips and draw all to 
Thyself. Draw the unbelievers, the impenitent, the 
backsliders, draw us all, that we may in truth run 
after Thee." ' 

in. Think of the prayer as expressing the mind 
of him who uttered it. The prayer of a sufferer, 
purified, softened by suffering, addressed to a suf- 
fering Lord. It is when life is ebbing out, when 
earthly visions are fading away, that this poor rob- 
ber is led to higher things. God has shown him 
the vanity of all else. Suffering is intended to be 
remedial. God in His compassion will accept even 
the dregs of a life, that He may renew that life. 
Suffering is intended to purify the vision, that as 
the outward man decays we may be led to set our 
affections on those things which cannot pass away. 



^Cant. i. 4 ; Ps. cxix. 32. 



THE WOED OF PRAYEK. 



35 



O blessed Jesu, we pray Thee to hallow suffering 
to all Thy people. Grant that they may not be 
hardened, but teach them to accept suffering with 
right dispositions, that their hearts may be touched, 
their lives sanctified. Hallow all bereavement, all 
spiritual trials and sorrows. In Passiontide we 
beg Thee to win souls to Thee through Thy suf- 
fering. 

Suffering is a kind of sacrament, requiring right 
dispositions in those who receive it. In those two 
crucified beside our Lord we see the different ef- 
fects of suffering : one is hardened, the other is sof- 
tened ; one reviles our Lord to the end, the other 
turns to Him in penitence and prayer.^ Grant 
me, dear Lord, rightly to accept suffering, and 
then send what Thou wilt. Only purify me, and 
grant that, dying with Thee, I may attain to live 
with Thee. 

The Word we are considering was the prayer of a 
sufferer, and addressed to a suffering Lord, the 
prayer the suffering Lord led him to offer. He saw 
our Lord sharing his suffering, and so felt sure that 
He could sympathize with him. Ah, blessed Lord, 
it is because I can pray to Thee, ''by Thy Fasting, 
by Thy Temptation, by Thine Agony and Bloody 
Sweat, by Thy Cross and Passion, by Thy Death and 
Burial," that I feel sure Thou canst understand me. 
This is one of the greatest blessings which the In- 
carnation assures to me. I think of God in His own 



^ Comp. Rev. ix. 20, 21 ; xvi. 8-11. 



36 



WOEDS TO THE CROSS. 



Divine Nature, and I feel a doubt if He, though my 
Heavenly Father, can understand my pain, my 
temptations and falls. But the Incarnate Lord has 
been tempted in all points like as we are, can in all 
points sympathize with and succor those that are 
tempted.^ 

In visiting the sick and poor remember how the 
uneducated and ignorant rejoice to hear the story of 
the Lord's sufferings. Often the eye, almost glazed 
in death, is turned to the figure of the Lord upon 
the Cross, and the sufferer is nerved to endure to 
the very end, knowing that the Lord Himself has 
gone the same way before. We are nerved to bear 
the parting with relatives, as we think of His part- 
ing with His blessed Mother ; nerved to bear spir- 
itual desolation, as we think of His bitter cry of 
anguish, and remember the clouding of His Soul ; 
enabled to commend our soul to God as we re-echo 
His last words, *'Into Thy hands I commend My 
Spirit." 

So we would take the prayer addressed to our 
Lord on the Cross as the prayer in which we would 
speak to Him now, and beg that, with confession of 
our sin, in true faith and hope in Him, we may be 
enabled at our last hour to say, Lord, remember me 
in Thy kingdom : Thy kingdom is set up upon the 
Cross : Thou art the King of Paradise. 

May I, persevering to the end, in any temptation 
or sorrow, in bearing the consequences of past 



1 Heb. ii. 18 ; iv. 15, 



THE WOKD OF PEAYEE. 



37 



sin, suffer with Thee here, O Lord, that so I may 
reign with Thee hereafter. May my last hour be 
hallowed by union with Thee, and so may I be wel- 
comed into Thy kingdom, which by Thy Cross and 
precious Blood Thou didst win for us. 



Psalm, cxxx. 



IV. 



THE WORD OF MISUNDERSTANDING. 

Behold, lie calleth Elias. Let us see whether Elias will 
come to take him down." — S. Mark xv. 35, 36. 

How wonderfully lifelike is the scene of the Cru- 
cifixion as depicted by fche several Evangelists ! 
How true to his natural position does each one ap- 
pear whose actions are recorded ! 

Pontius Pilate, as the Eoman Governor, takes cog- 
nizance of the political charge, and affixes the title 
to the cross, "The King of the Jews." The Chief 
Priests, as they had charged Jesus with religious 
blasphemy, taunt and mock Him as a pretended 
Messiah. The penitent robber, brought up as a 
child to attend the Synagogue and Temple services, 
had mingled with his outlawry and robbery dreams 
of patriotism. His mind is purified by suffering, 
and as earthly visions fade away he beholds a real 
royalty in his Fellow-Sufferer, and the teaching of 
the Old Testament Scriptures, long buried in his 
heart and mind, flashes up ; he feels. Here is One 
indeed on whom the Spirit rests, One who has come 
to heal the broken-hearted, to preach good tidings 
to the meek, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and 
the restoring of sight to the blind ; he sees fulfilled 
the old description, he recognizes God's Messiah, 



THE WORD OF MISUI^DERSTAKDmO. 39 



the spiritual King reigning on the Cross, and he 
prays, Lord, remember me when Thou comest 
into Thy kingdom." 

The Koman soldiers, too, act in perfect accord- 
ance with their position and circumstances. They 
are there simply on duty. They are ordered to 
watch by the Cross until the end. They have no 
interest in the matter, and, brutalized by their fa- 
miliarity with such scenes, they have their dice to 
wile away the time while waiting, and the sour wine 
they have brought for their refreshment. They 
could not be expected to understand spiritual 
things, and so when our Lord cries out, in the 
words of the twenty-second Psalm, "Eli, Eli, lama 
sabachthani ? " (the very language is strange to them, 
they only know a few detached words of the de- 
spised Hebrew language), they not unnaturally, 
knowing that the Jews expected Elijah to intervene 
on their behalf in any crisis, that it was supposed 
to be his office to conduct souls to Paradise, think 
that the sufferer is invoking the Prophet. The next 
cry followed immediately on this, " I thirst," and a 
soldier, moved with pity, dips a sponge in the wine, 
and on a reed of hyssop puts it to His lips. The 
others say, Let alone, don't get in the way, let us 
see if Elias will come to help him.^ The whole 
scene is just what we might have expected ; the sol- 
diers were utterly unable to realize the meaning of 



^ S. Matt, xxvii. 46-49 ; S. Mark, xv. 34-36 ; S. John, 
xix. 28, 29. 



40 



WORDS TO THE CKOSS. 



that cry to God ; they suppose that in His agony 
Jesus calls for Elijah. 

I. Think of the pain with which those words rise 
up in His ears, as those for whom He dies show 
their inability to understand Him. It had been so 
all through His life. They daily mistake my 
words." ^ The Jews sought to entrap him.^ His 
very disciples were so slow to take in His teaching.^ 
Up to the very last, while He sought to teach the 
great lesson of the self-abandonmenfc of love, they 
were quarrelling about pre-eminence.* And now, in 
His last dying moments, those for whom He was lay- 
ing down His life misunderstand Him. It is the 
sorrow of one far beyond his age, who towers above 
his fellows, the sorrow of being thus misunderstood. 
Think of the loneliness of Jesus on the Cross — ex- 
ternal and internal. He is betrayed by one disciple, 
denied by another, forsaken by all. True, there is 
a little group near the Cross — Mary, His beloved 
Mother, and John, who, immediately recovering him- 
self, had followed on to the High Priest's palace, to 
Pilate's judgment hall, to Calvary, and as a reward 
of his faithfulness had received that precious gift, 
the only earthly gift He has to bestow, the care of 
His blessed Mother. And Mary Magdalene is there 
with others, obliged to stand at a distance, driven 
off by the ribald jests and rude thrusts of the sol- 



1 Ps. Ivi. 5. 2 ]^/[att. xxii. 15. 

3S. Luke xxii. 38 ; S. Matt. xv. 16 ; S. John xiv. 9. 
* S. Luke xxii. 24. 



THE WOED OF MISUI^DERSTANDIISTG. 41 



diers. The Chief Priests have been reviling Him, 
but are now departed to the evening service in the 
Temple, gone off to offer their empty rites with 
blood-stained hands, having turned their backs on 
the true Paschal Lamb offered for the sins of the 
world. The soldiers only are left, and they are only 
waiting for all to be over. Think of the loneliness 
external and internal. 

O blessed Jesu, we would now take our place in 
the company of the faithful few ; open our eyes that 
we may see, touch our hearts that we may weep 
with Mary Magdalene, and enable us, like Thy dear 
Mother, to stand bravely by Thy Cross. John saw 
Thee with the eye of faith, that could behold the 
things of God, saw Thee reign on the tree of shame 
in moral majesty and begin to draw all men to Thy- 
self. Grant us too so to gaze in the sacred hours of 
Thy Passion ; give to us the seeing eye, the listen- 
ing, understanding heart. 

n. Think of the soldiers' Word of Misunderstand- 
ing, how it is ever re-echoed through the ages. 
Jesus spake not simply to those within ear-shot, but 
to every age and every nation. We may be sure 
that the words addressed to Him that are set down 
in the Gospels are representative words ; and as the 
Word of Taunt and Scoffing we hear continually 
repeated, and pray that the sufferer's Prayer to a 
suffering Lord may be continually on our lips, so 
this too must be a representative word. The 
World has no real power of apprehending spir- 
itual things. Spiritual things are spiritually dis- 



42 



WORDS TO THE CEOSS. 



i 



cerned. ^ The World must misunderstand, it has not 
the eye to see, or the ear to hear, or the scales to meas- 
ure the things of God. Spiritual wisdom is foolish- 
ness to the natural man. It is as if one who was 
color-blind should take upon himself to judge of some 
great painting, or one without ear for music should 
criticise the harmony of some intricate composition ; 
even so the natural heart of man is utterly incapa- 
ble of judging of the things of God. Yet the "World 
continually tries to do so. We presume to weigh 
all things in the finite scales of our puny under- 
standing. We lay down what God ought to do ; we 
determine what must be the lot of men in a future 
world, from what seems to us more likely ; or we de- 
nounce the system of sacraments of grace because 
it is not such as we should have devised. We are 
just like the soldiers who had not the spiritual fac- 
ulties to comprehend. Alas ! how often we allow 
ourselves to be disturbed by the World's want of ap- 
preciation. The World scoffs at asceticism, at high 
ideas of prayer, and calls men of prayer mere dream- 
ers and fanatics — and we think such things must be 
folly because the World in its wisdom derides them. 
The World in its wisdom knew not God.^ There 
is a common-sense of faith which is clear to the il- 
luminated heart. There are spiritual truths equally 
certain with those of nature, only requiring spirit- 
ual discernment ; and shall we be disturbed because 
an article in a newspaper, written perhaps by some 



' 1 Cor. ii. 14. 



2 1 Cor. i. 21. 



THE WORD OF MISTJKDERSTAlSrDINa. 43 



one of an indifferent, if not openly immoral life, fails 
to grasp the deep meaning of spiritual things ? Be- 
cause the libertine says. All will come right in the 
end, are we going to believe him instead of the 
teaching of the Church and Holy Scripture ? What 
the World may say about religion we may be pretty 
sure is a perversion and caricature. Of this we may 
be quite sure, it is not the truth of God in its purity. 
We will not be guided in spiritual things by merely 
worldly reasoning. We will ask the way of true 
peace and holiness from those who have trodden in 
its j)aths. We will ask concerning the things of 
God from those who are His intimate and familiar 
friends. The World must misunderstand and mis- 
represent. From the World's ways and the World's 
opinions I appeal to the example of Thy Saints, O 
Lord, whom Thou hast filled with Thy gifts of light 
and truth and purity. 

ni. Let me think how incomprehensible that cry 
of Jesus must have been to the soldiers. It was not 
a cry of despair, though of mighty anguish and in- 
tense suffering, a cry from Christ as Man and as 
a Son to God His Father. Alone, deserted by His 
friends, turned from by those who should have been 
His willing servants, amid enemies, like " the hind 
at bay," ^ our Lord seems for the time to have lost 
the consciousness of the Divine love. The darkness 
of the earthly scene is a type of the deeper darkness 
of that clouded human Soul bereft of the conscious- 



^ See the title of Ps. xxii. 



44 



WORDS TO THE OEOSS. 



ness of the Divine favor. After a while the darkness 
passes away, and He cries, in the words of the 
Psalm, My God, my God, why didst Thou forsake 
Me ? " It is no complaint but the confident remon- 
strance of one whose trust is unshaken. The begin- 
ning of the Psalm is indeed a deep wail ; it ends 
with triumphant expression of victory. 

Yes, that cry told of two things that the World 
must ever misrepresent. 

1. It told of the thirst of the soul for God. All 
others might have forsaken Me, but why didst Thou 
forsake Me ? Betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, 
mocked by the Chief Priests, smitten by the sol- 
diers, I seem ensnared like a hind at bay. But this 
I could have borne, Alone, yet not alone, because 
the Father is with Me." But oh, now when the 
light of Thy countenance is hid from me — '*My 
soul is athirst for God, yea even for the living God." 
"Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so 
longeth my soul after thee, O God." ^ The World 
cannot understand this. The World thinks such ex- 
pressions of devotion tell of an unhealthy, morbid 
sentimentality. ''Don't indulge such thoughts and 
ideas," the World says. " Do your duty and then you 
will come to God, if there is one, in due time — but 
fellowship with God now is only mysticism." The 
World thinks of any soul seeking the Eeligious Life, 
it can only be turning to God because the World 
has failed ; she has been crossed perhaps in love, 



1 Ps. xlii. 1, 2. 



THE WOED OF MISUl^DEESTA^TDHSTG. 45 



and, weary and disappointed, is just calling for some 
Elias. 

2. That cry told of our Lord's thirst for God, and 
of the depth of penitence as He groaned under the 
burden of sin upon the Cross, felt the burden as He 
alone could feel it. The World does not understand 
penitence. The World thinks it is morbid to prac- 
tise self-examination. It says : Forget the past — 
as if God remembered, or cared to have you remem- 
ber." David says, My sin is ever before me," ^ 
but that only shows a diseased state of mind. The 
World cannot understand contrition, which is the 
form love must take when sin has come in between 
the soul and God. But with John and the blessed 
Mother, and those who catch His Mind and repro- 
duce His Spirit, let us stand before the Cross and 
gaze. We would seek, O blessed Jesu, to compre- 
hend the meaning of what Thou doest, what Thou 
sayest and bearest. We would seek to follow in 
Thy footsteps ; we acknowledge Thy moral glory on 
the tree of shame, and we would humble ourselves 
in penitence, and seek to rise up to that love, the 
perfect example of which Thou dost give to us. 

Psalm xxii. 



^Ps. li. 3. 



V. 



THE WORD OP ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 

^' Truly this was the Son of God."— S. Matthew xxvii. 54. 

We come to the consideration of the last words 
spoken to or concerning our Lord upon the Cross. 
The Words spoken to Him or those spoken by Him 
on the Cross have an undying significance. They 
are representative Words, expressing the different 
attitude to our Lord of those who uttered them. 
And the last Word spoken of Him on the Cross has 
a close correspondence with the last Word spoken 
by Him from the Cross. Both tell of the vindication 
of His glory. As the cloud rolled away which had 
clouded His consciousness of the Father's love, there 
was the pleading of His Divine Sonship, and in His 
last Word He claimed that Sonship in full confi- 
dence. 

I. Spoken to Him or of Him there had been the 
sentence of Pilate, the taunt of the Chief Priests, the 
prayer of the malefactor, the misunderstanding of 
the soldiers, and now there is the confession of the 
centurion. It is recorded by the first three Evange- 
lists. S. Mark tells us the centurion ^' stood over 
against " the Cross.* He as the officer was naturally 
a man of more intelligence and education than the 



^ S. Mark xy. 39. 



THE WOED OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 47 



common soldiers. They had formed a little knot by 
themselves, and were distributing the garments. 
The officer stands on one side from them, and draws 
near to the Cross. While they were intent on their 
dice he watched more curiously and intently. He 
caught the words spoken by our Lord. S. Mark 
tells us that it was the loud cry with which our Lord 
resigned His Spirit into the Father's hands that 
called forth the centurion's acknowledgment.^ He 
had been impressed and awed by the preternatural 
darkness, when the midday sun veiled his face at 
this awful tragedy — as the midnight heavens had 
blazed with glory when the Angels announced the 
Saviour's Birth. 

And he felt the earthquake that rent the rocks 
and opened the graves.^ He heard the loud, victori- 
ous shout, telling of the accomplishment of His work, 
" It is finished ! " The prize is won, the victory 
gained ! ' And he thought. Never dying man spake 
like this. He had seen His meekness and patience 
and forbearance, His moral majesty, all through those 
dying hours. He had heard Him pray for His mur- 
derers ; had heard the prayer of the dying robber, 
and He, the dying man, had promised His fellow- 
sufferer a place in His kingdom. What did all this 
mean ? Who could this be making such claims in 
the face of death ? An impostor would have been 
cowed then, a fanatic would have broken down. 



^ S. Mark xv. 39 ; comp. S. Luke xxiii. 47. 

2 S. Matt, xxvii. 54. ^ j^^^ ^ix. 30. 



48 



WOEDS TO THE CEOSS. 



Truly there is somettiing in this man's claims. The 
centurion could not understand as we do His real 
relation to the Godhead, God of God, very God of 
very God, the only begotten Son of the Father — but 
he had heard the Chief Priests taunt this sufferer 
with claiming to be God's Son, and the centurion 
recognizes that He is a righteous man," ^ moreover 
that He had a Divine Mission. In some sense He 
claimed to be God's Son, and in that sense in which 
He made the claim, " truly this was the Son of 
God." ^ All His claims were true, He is indeed rec- 
ognized as being what He claimed to be. 

Ah, blessed Jesu, Thou didst gain the centurion's 
faith ; gain our faith. We believe in Thee, we wor- 
ship Thee, because Thou didst not, wouldst not, 
come down from the Cross to manifest Thy Divine 
Sonship. They knew not Whom they crucified, 
even the Lord of glory. ^ We believe that Thou art 
the Son of God. How must we worship Thee, 
knowing Who Thou art. That Body was the Body 
of the Eternal Son of God made Man, that Soul was 
the Soul of God, having no existence apart from the 



^ S. Luke xxiii. 47. 

^ There is no definite article in tlie Greek of either S. Matt, 
xxvii. 54 or S. Mark xv. 39. "God's Son,'' as in the margin 
of the Revised Version, would best express the undefined 
sense of the centurion's words. The sense in which our 
Lord had made the claim, as equivalent to that of the Ni- 
cene Creed, is clear from many passages, e.g., S. Matt. xxvi. 
63-65 ; S. John xix. 7-9 ; v. 17-36 ; x. BO-33. 

3 1 Cor. ii. 8. 



THE WORD OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 49 



Eternal Person Who in Mary's womb assumed our 
nature by the operation of the Holy Ghost. ''Liffc 
up your heads, eternal gates," the Angels sing. 
" "Who is the King of glory ? " the warders of the 
nether world in wonder reply, The Lord " Who 
has proved Himself " mighty in battle," tried, as- 
saulted, but victorious through all/ We worship 
Thee, O blessed Jesu, dead upon the Cross ; we 
worship Thy living Person, who didst give Thy life 
for us, Who dost give Thyself to us in the Blessed 
Sacrament of the Altar, where Thou dost communi- 
cate to us the virtue of Thy saving Death, the merits 
of Thy Passion, a principle of undying Life. Think 
of the acknowledgment of the centurion, and think 
how it was won, by patience, and by the display of 
moral majesty in the midst of external pain and 
shame. Even so, if we would gain a victory over 
others, it is not by self-assertion, but by self-sacrifice 
that we are to conquer. Jesus reigns on the tree. 
Through death He wins life. 

n. Consider God's vindication of His Son. 

Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself." ^ 
The Word tabernacled in our flesh, that we might 
not be overcome by His glory. And God allowed 
His Son to be cast out of His vineyard, and slain by 
evil men.^ But a day shall come when the righteous 
judgment of God shall vindicate itself.^ On the 
third day He shall be " declared to be the Son 



^ Ps. xxiv. ^ Isa. xlv. 15. ^ S. Luke xx. 13-15. 

^ Eom. ii. 5 ; Acts iv. 10 ; v. 30, 31. 
4 



50 



WORDS TO THE CEOSS, 



of God with power by the resurrection from the 
dead." ^ But no sooner is the obedience perfected 
than the reward begins. No sooner has Jesus 
spoken the last Word of Commendation to His 
Father than the Word of Acknowledgment is spoken 
of Him. No sooner has He humbled Himself even 
to the death of the Cross than God begins to exalt 
Him. Unto Him every knee shall bow, and every 
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.^ The cen- 
turion's acknowledgment is the pledge of the fuM- 
ment of the promise. Now at eventide it is light. 
We need not wait till the dawn for God's mercies to 
be shown. So quickly the return is given, so soon 
the reward bestowed. 

O blessed Jesu, in Thy example of faithful obe- 
dience unto death, in Thy true love, Thy victorious 
self-sacrifice, let me learn the pattern for my own 
life. Let the mind be in me that was in Thee, and 
then shall be true of me the promise, that he that 
humbleth himself shall be exalted.^ 

HI. Thus are we too to look for vindication to the 
end of the strife, when the battle is accomplished 
and the victory won. Using now the grace the Head 
bestows upon His members, at the last He shall be 
manifested with all His Saints. Then shall the 
Righteous Man, and all who have shared His right- 
eousness, stand before His foes, and they shall say : 



* Eom. i. 4 ; S. Luke xviii. 33. 
2 Phil. ii. 8-11 ; Rom. xiv. 10, 11. 
S. Luke xiv. 11. 



THE WORD OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 51 



This is he, whom we had sometimes in derision ; 
we fools counted his life madness, and his end to be 
without honor : How is he numbered among the 
children of God, and his lot is among the saints ! " ^ 

But then the vindication is to be earned by us ac- 
cording to the same law. The World says to us 
" Come down ; " we will accept the Church if it 
manifest earthly power, and the Christian if his life 
is full of a large liberty. The World did not accept 
Jesus on the Cross, and the World will not accept 
His mystical Body on the Cross, or the individual 
Christian. And yet while crucified in weakness, 
Jesus reigns in power, in His own person and in 
His members.^ We are to prove our Divine sonship, 
not by turning stones into bread or by throwing off 
restraints, but by living on whatever shall be the 
word of God for us, by being able to do without 
whatever may seem most necessary in life if He with- 
hold it, by being able to cling to the Cross through 
all trial : so shall we be able to live in spotless in- 
tegrity, and commend our spirits, made in His 
image, into His hands at the last, proved to be His 
children by our likeness to Himself. Stripped, if it 
be His will, of all, like the dead Body of Christ 
upon the Cross, deserted by friends, despoiled of 
goods, bereft of honor, our cherished wishes, plans, 
hopes frustrated : so surely shall we imitate His 
example, so shall Divine virtue be recognized in us, 
which, assaulted and tried, yet persevered through all 



» Wisd. V. 1-5. 



2 2 Cor. xiil. 4. 



52 



WOEDS TO THE GEOSS. 



these temptations. So will we look forward to the 
manifestation of God's judgment when we have been 
proved and perfected by suffering. God divides His 
righteous Servant a portion with the great, and He 
divides the spoil with the strong ; because He poured 
out His Soul unto death ; and He was numbered 
with the transgressors ; and He bare the sin of 
many, and made intercession for the transgressors. 
So He makes His grave with the powerful, and is 
with the rich in His death ; because He had done no 
violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth/ 

O blessed Jesu, our Lord and Master, Thee we 
worship, in Thee we believe, in Thee we hope, and 
Thee we would love more truly. Draw us that we 
may run after Thee, strengthen us to imitate Thy 
example, that so we may be acknowledged by Thee 
at the last. 

* * Soul of Jesus, make me pure, 
Flesh, of Jesus, be my cure, 
Fill me, O most precious Blood, 
Wash, me, O thou mingled Flood ; 
Let Thy Passion banish fear, 
And my prayer, good Jesu, hear.'' 

Psalm iv. 



1 Isa. Hii. 9, 12. 



GOOD FEIDAT MEDITATIONS. 

The Words Spoken by our Lord from the Cross. 



1. 

THE TRUE EEGARD OF SINNEES. 

Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do.'' 
— S. Luke xxiii. 34. 

1. The First Word tells of God's regard of Sin- 
ners, the regard of pity, infinite pity. His attitude 
toward them, yearning over them, is represented by 
Christ with His arms stretched out upon the Cross. 
This, you say, was by violence. Aye, and here is 
the glory, the wondrous culminating point of the 
manifestation of Divine love. Man rejects God. 
God bears with him, His sinful creature. He de- 
stroys him not. He suffers His attributes to be out- 
raged. As they blindfolded Christ ; God does not 
see, man says. They mocked Him ; He can't inter- 
fere, they think. He is tied by laws ; or He doesn't 
much care. His power is defied. His wisdom de- 
nied. His love outraged. 

Death and Life meet in wondrous strife. Heaven 
and Hell, Love and Hate. The victory in the end 



54 



WORDS FEOM THE CEOSS. 



remains with Love. God is not overcome of evil : 
He overcomes evil with goodness. 

In Creation God loaded man with benefits. In 
Redemption, by a still greater manifestation of His 
goodness He would restore him. He seeks to win 
man back. He dispels the hard thoughts man has 
entertained of Him. 

In Christ on the Cross praying for those who 
murdered Him we have the revelation of God's 
pitying love for sinners. He makes excuse for 
them : ''They know not what they do." The chief 
priests, Judas, knew not ichat they did. Had they 
known he was the Lord of Glory they would not 
have crucified Him.^ The soldiers were but execut- 
ing their professional duty. All is wrong, unjust, 
cowardly, brutal, treacherous. Pride, envy, covetous- 
ness are at the bottom of it all. But still He makes 
all possible allowance. He seeks to draw sinners out 
of their sin, to show the real evil of the sins which 
partly in ignorance they commit. So He deals with 
us. We knew not what we did. More and more, 
year after year, we cZo know the real character of 
our sins. But in that surrender to lust, in that 
unbelief or disobedience, w^e realized not what we 
were doing — the offence against God, His interest 
in the matter. 

2. As God's regard of sinners, so the true Man's 
we see in Jesus. It is illustrated in the touching 
story told by S. John of our Lord's dealing with 



1 1 Cor. ii. 8 ; Acts iii. 17. 



THE TEUE EEGARD OF SINKEES. 55 



the woman taken in adultery. " Neither do I con- 
demn thee : go, and sin no more/' is the word of 
Jesus/ Before Him, the pattern of perfect purity, 
the sinner is abashed. See the true priestly spirit, 
not of harsh condemnation, but of yearning com- 
passion. Do we cherish this spirit in dealing 
with unfortunates/' in thinking of the criminal 
classes ? " Do we take into account, and make al- 
lowance for, their disadvantages, the influence of 
heredity and environment ? There is a danger in 
our scientific philanthropy of our becoming hard. 
Pure science is very cruel and unfeeling. It talks 
of the survival of the fittest ; it may even go so far 
as to recommend us to let the depraved and appar- 
ently hopeless die off, while we concern ourselves only 
with the education of the children, with preventive 
rather than with remedial work. Christian love 
must mitigate the hard laws of social economy. 

Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they 
do." 

Remember, too, the lesson with regard to those 
who offend us. It is easy to take a light view of sin 
in the abstract ; it is very different when it touches 
us. 

But in the true man hatred for sin must always 
be accompanied by love and pity for the sinner. 

Ps. cxxx. 

Collect, 3d for Good Friday. 
Hymn, " Sweet the moments." 



^ S. Jolin viii. 11. 



n. 



OP PENITENTS. 

Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with, me in 
paradise." — S. Luke xxiii. 43. 

The Second Word from the Cross shows us Christ 
our Lord, both God and Man, in His treatment of 
Penitents. In the First Word we see Him pitying, 
praying for, seeking to convert Sinners ; in the Sec- 
ond He reconciles the Penitent. 

1. He has loon a Sinner, The triumphs of the 
Cross begin right soon. The lawless malefactor, a 
hardened criminal, the member of a band of bri- 
gands, of which very likely Barabbas was chieftain, 
at last after many hairbreadth escapes has been 
apprehended ; caught perhaps red-handed, having 
shared in the murder which accompanied the insur- 
rection.^ He has been condemned to execution, 
and in order to add indignity to our Lord's crucifix- 
ion the rebels are to be put to death all together. 
Truly our Lord is ^'numbered with the transgres- 
sors." And He seizes the opportunity. Placing 
Himself in the midst of those whom He would help 
He gains access to them. He gives to us the exam- 
ple of sympathetic help — not preaching down to 



1 S, Mark xv. 7; S. Luke xxiii. 19. 



OF PENITEITTS. 57 



others from a pedestal as You sinners," but plac- 
ing ourselves by their side that we may say We 
sinners/' and help them to rise. 

Are we forward to use such opportunities, like S. 
Paul in prison laying himself out to win Onesimus,^ 
or S. Vincent de Paul condemned to the galleys 
converting his fellow-prisoners ? 

The robber has never before been treated with 
kindness. He had been an outcast, who had for- 
feited all consideration. And treated hardly he has 
grown more hard himself ; his hand against every 
man and every man's hand against him. But some- 
thing good there was in him. And this display of 
meekness in Jesus appeals to it, and draws it out. 
He has watched Jesus in the Judgment Hall, on the 
Way of Sorrows, and on the Cross by his side. He 
is won by His unearthly majesty, His unconquera- 
ble patience. 

** The liardness and the stains of many a year 
Dropt off as in a moment and disclosed 
The nobler features of the new-born man." ^ 

He turns to the Sufferer by his side and prays, 
''Lord, remember me when thou comest into Thy 
kingdom." 

2. And Jesus ivelcomes the Penitent, There is 
nothing much that he can show in the way of peni- 



' Philem. 9, 10. 

^ See Dean Plumptre's remarkable poem, " Jesus Bar-ab- 
bas," in his volume, Lazarus and other Poems. 



58 



WOEDS FEOM THE CKOSS. 



tence. A deed of repentance he indeed shows in 
his rebuke to his companion, ''Dost not thou fear 
God, seeing we are in the same condemnation ? and 
we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of 
our deeds." A full confession he cannot make ; but, 
as Bishop Jeremy Taylor says, commenting on the 
great commission to remit and to retain sins, the 
Priest is a judge rather of the person's penitence 
than of his sins. The commission runs, " Whose soever 
sins," not Wliatsoever sins/ And his faith is very 
imperfect. He acknowledges the Sufferer by his 
side as the Messiah, but he knows little either of 
His real dignity or of the true character of His 
kingdom. But Jesus does not insist on impossible 
— practically impossible — conditions. He will not 
break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking 
flax. The man does w^hat he can. Our Lord 
makes the very most of all. And so He would have 
us act. Don't make it too hard for people to re- 
turn. How do we treat penitents in the House of 
Mercy, or the Temperance Society, or persons with 
sceptical doubts ? Do we try to meet them half- 
way and help them to rise to higher, better things. 
Or do we hold our skirts and treat them as pariahs ? 
So we are little likely to rescue them from their evil 
condition. Sin is horrid, loathsome ; but out of the 
sin we must seek with infinite patience and tender- 
ness to save the sinner. 



^ S. Jolm XX. 23. See Jeremy Taylor, Dissuasive frora 
Po'peryy Second Part, bk I., sect. xi. 2. 



OF PElSriTEJSTTS. 



59 



Listen to the Lord's reply : " To-day shalt thou 
be with Me in Paradise." He accepts the penitent 
so graciously : He promises more than was asked. 

" When the answer came it spake 
Of no proud pageant of the pomps of earth, 
But gave the promise of a night of peace 
After that noon of torture ; cooling streams 
After that fevered thirst ; for writhing limbs 
And naked shame, and taunts of mocking crowds 
The land as Eden fair, where gales of balm 
O'er soft, green meadows murmur evermore. 
Fear not ; thou shalt be with Me ; so the words 
Like low, soft music sounded in his ears, 
With Me, within the Paradise of God." 

3. Much still remains to be done. The sinner is 
won. The penitent is reconciled. There is need of 
subsequent training. In Paradise he shall learn 
lessons he did not learn, there was no one to teach 
him, here. He shall be more and more cleansed 
from the stain of sin. He shall be taught to see 
the truth, and in the light of that truth to see the 
old life. In perfected penitence shall be perfected 
purification. 

Ps. xxxii. 

Collect, Ash Wednesday. 

Hymn, All ye who seek for sure relief." 



m. 



OF FEIENDS. 

Behold thy son ! Behold thy mother ! " — S. John xix. 
26, 27. 

We have seen our Lord's conduct toward, His 
view of, Sinners^ as He prayed for those who cruci- 
fied Him, and of Penitents, as He pardons the male- 
factor. Now we see Him dealing with His FriendSy 
His Mother and S. John. 

1. He looks around. What does He see and 
hear ? 

The malefactors have relapsed into silence; the 
one stupefied and his strength spent, the other pon- 
dering. What were the operations of grace in his 
soul in that hour ! The soldiers are playing dice to 
while away the time. Every now and then they join 
in with the Chief Priests as they hear some outrage- 
ous scoff. I say ! Do you hear that ? Let's toast 
the King ; come, drink his health." The Chief 
Priests are exulting in the execution of their plan. 
They wag their heads, and mock, deride, and taunt 
Him, The people join in the jeers. 

Are there no friendly faces ? He sees His Mother, 
tearful but brave, her heart broken, but she faints not 
nor shrieks. She stands by the Cross in a majesty 
of sorrow. Magdalene is in a paroxysm of grief, the 
other women are trying to quiet her. And He sees 
the disciple whom He loved. Aye, S. John is there. 



OF FRIEISTDS, 



61 



Peter had slunk away ; afraid at first, and now 
ashamed. All had been, as He foretold, offended, be- 
cause of Him. Those whom He had called friends, 
not servants, they had left Him in the hands of His 
enemies. S. John had tripped, but he had soon re- 
covered himself. And then he followed right on — 
into the High Priest's palace, to the Eoman gover- 
nor's praetorium. To him we owe the detailed ac- 
count of the examination of our Lord before Pilate.^ 
He had conducted the blessed Mother to Calvary. 
His love was strong even to death. He returned 
love for love. He is the loved disciple and the lov- 
ing. He followed from the Breaking of Bread to 
the Drinking of the Cup of the Passion ; from the 
Upper Chamber of the Eucharist to Gethsemane and 
Gabbatha and Golgotha. 

2. And Jesus recognizes him standing by the 
Cross. Did He look for others ? He recognizes him. 
In that recognition we have an illustration of *'the 
living God " acting toward us as we act toward 
Him; really grieved by our unfaithfulness, really 
pleased by our fidelity. It is not an abstract law 
that we obey, but a living, loving, personal God and 
Master. He sees all, but He looks for that which He 
can reward. A cup of cold water given in His Name 
shall not be without its reward.^ No work of mercy, 
corporal or spiritual, no self-denial, or resistance to 
temptation, shall be left unnoticed. He watches, 
He notes, aye, and He v/ill reward openly. 



S. Jolm xviii. , xix. 



2 S. Matt. X. 42. 



62 



WOEDS FROM THE CROSS. 



John is rewarded for his faithfulness. Jesus 
commends to his care His blessed Mother. What a 
reward for faithfulness ! "What honor and joy ! 
" The Teacher who had been to him as a brother 
leaves to him a brother's duty. He is to be as a son 
to the Mother who is left desolate.'' 

3. Note the nature of the reward. He is allowed to 
do something for Jesus. He is called to show love in 
a new way. Do not think that the reward for faithful- 
ness will be discharge from further service. It will 
rather be increased responsibility, wider influence, a 
more serious charge. Favors involve duties ; privil- 
eges bring with them responsibilities. Show love, 
our Lord says, to others for Me ; a love not in word or 
in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Prove your love 
to Me by loving Mine. Feed My lambs, tend My 
flock. Take this child and nurse it for Me, care for this 
servant, this penitent: I will give thee thy reward.^ 

As we think of our Lord's Word addressed to His 
Friends, let us ask ourselves : (1) Are we faithful 
in our friendships — standing by them in adversity, 
like S. John ? (2) Do we, like Jesus, recognize our 
friends and their service — not taking all for granted ? 
(3) Do we expect to receive fresh duties from Him, 
and show ourselves ready to encourage, to support, 
and succor others ? 

Ps. xvi. 

Collect, 2d for Good Friday. 

Hymn, By the Cross her station keeping." 



1 1 S. John iii. 18 ; S. John xxi. 15-17 ; Ex. ii. 9. 



rv. 



OF SIN. 

''Mj God, Mj God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" — S. 
Matt, xxvii. 46. 

We pass from the regard of Persons to that of 
Things. Darkness now enshrouds the Cross. The 
sun hides his face from that dreadful sight. The 
outward gloom is but the shadow of a greater dark- 
ness which enveloped the human Soul of Jesus. 
Spirits of darkness crowd round for a final assault. 
Out of that darkness came the exceeding bitter cry, 
My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? " 
Indeed the waters are come in. His soul is exceed- 
ing sorrowful, even unto death. 

1. He has parted from His Friends. All external 
duties are fulfilled. Provision has been made for 
them. Now He has time and opportunity, if we 
may so say, to think, at least to speak, of Himself. 
S. John has led away the blessed Mother. Their 
presence had been a certain stay, even as He had 
asked His disciples in the Garden to watch with 
Him, relying to a certain extent on the support of 
their sympathy.^ Now He is left alone. Hitherto 
He could always say, Alone, yet not alone, for the 
Father is with Me." ^ But now the consciousness of 



^ S. Matt. xxvi. 38. 



2 S. John xvi. 32. 



64 



WORDS FEOM THE CROSS. 



the Father's love seems to be withdrawn, His Face is 
veiled. This it is which is expressed in the bitter 
cry, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken 
me ? " 

2. Jesus is now tasting indeed the bitterness of 
death, the misery of sin. He is experiencing, so far 
as is possible, the sinner's doom. For what is that 
but the loss of God, Who is the soul's true satisfac- 
tion and stay ? Man without God, when other things 
fail, being either withdrawn or used up — what is 
this but the very pain of Hell ? The heart of man 
is made for God, and nought but God can fill it : it 
is ever restless until it find its rest in Him. ^ Jesus 
on the Cross is, in a sense, in the sinner's place — by 
the power of His sympathy, and as the representa- 
tive of the fallen race. His cry of woe reveals the 
barrier which exists between sin and the Holy God, 
which necessarily shuts out the sinner, if he be not 
won, from God and happiness. Sin does separate, 
must separate from God. It is the contradiction of 
His every attribute. It is the wilful withdrawing 
from obedience to His will. Sin is the act of mad- 
ness whereby man in his folly parts with God. 
Indeed it is an evil and bitter thing to forsake the 
fountain of living waters, and in our disobedience, 
our pride, sensuality, dishonesty, to hew out for 
ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no 
water. ^ We can understand something of the an- 
guish of Jesus' soul expressed in this cry, if we 



' S. Augustine's Confessions, I., 1. ^ Jer. ii. 13, 19. 



OF SIK. 



65 



think of the agony of losing belief — some of you have 
known it clouded. What then is left ? we ask ; what 
to live for, what to hold by, what to cheer and guide ? 

The cry of Jesus tells us of sin chosen and sin 
found, of God rejected and God lost. It is, remem- 
ber, no arbitrary hiding of His Face that we have to 
fear. Sin is a necessary, an inevitable barrier. We 
learn God's regard of sin, Your iniquities," He says, 
^'have separated between you and your God, and 
your sins have hid his face from you, that he will 
not hear. Therefore wash you, make you clean ; put 
away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; 
cease to do evil ; learn to do well ; seek judgment, 
relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for 
the widow." ^ 

3. And man's true regard, the true man's regard, 
of sin we learn. He hates it, dallies not with it, 
but treats it ever as an evil and abominable thing. 
God's commandments, he knows, are not grievous. 
All His statutes are for our good always.'^ Sin 
therefore he recognizes as folly. 

Thus we understand something of the meaning 
of our Lord's cry. In His Passion He is a Penitent, 
the representative of fallen man. He is not pun- 
ished as man's Substitute, but He sorrows as man's 
Eepresentative. He tastes death, and the penalty 
of sin for every man.^ By His penitence He would 
win all to penitence. Drinking into Himself, as it 
were, in the Cup of the Passion the tainted draught 

1 Isa. lix. 2 ; i. 16, 17. 

2 1 S. Jolm V. 3 ; Dent. vi. 24. ^ Heb. ii. 9, 

5 



66 



WOEDS FEOM THE CEOSS. 



of man's polluted life, by a mighty act of contrition 
He diverts the course of human life, and pours forth 
from Himself in the Chalice of the Eucharist a 
stream of new, sanctified, and sanctifying life. 

He is the Lamb of God that taketh away, by first 
taking on Himself, the sins of the world/ Both as 
Priest and Victim He is the sin-bearer. 

*^ Now tlie torrents of His Passion 

Deep and fierce above Him roll ; 
And the rivers of transgression 

Overwhelm His Human Soul. 
Sins unknown, sins unimagined, 

Sins by day and sins by niglit, 
Sins of blackest, outer darkness 

Press upon His purest sight ; 
Sins since o'er the Eastern portal 

First the cherub waved his sword, 
Till the last that shall be written 

Ere the coming of the Lord." 

As we contemplate His sorrow, the sorrow of His 
penitence, we will learn to sorrow for sin with a 
godly sorrow ^ — not for the loss of reputation it may 
have involved, nor for any temporal consequences 
we may suffer, but because of the offence to 
Almighty God. Considering His regard of sin we 
would arm ourselves likewise with the same mind. 

Ps. li. 

General Confession. 

Hymn, ''O Sinner, lift the eye of faith." 



1 S. John i. 29 ; 1 S. Pet. ii. 24. 

2 Dr. Neale's Hjmn for Maundy Thursday. 

3 2 Cor. vii. 9-11. 



V. 



OF PAIN. 

I tliirst."— S. John xix. 28. 

These last Four Words are like the ejaculations of 
a dying man. They are spoken at shorter intervals. 
The first three were more deliberate, spoken in the 
light. These are forced from our Lord, as it were, 
by the pressure of His woe. The Fourth "Word is 
the expression of Spiritual Anguish, the Fifth of 
Bodily Torment. He was true Man, really tasting 
our sorrows. In all our afflictions He was afflicted 
— in the lesser as well as the greater. You know 
the feverish thirst which often accompanies the ap- 
proach of death. In the death of crucifixion the 
thirst would be peculiarly intense, resulting in part 
from suffocation, and being aggravated by all our 
Lord had endured during the past night. He sym- 
pathizes with us in our Pain. He would show us 
how to regard Pain, how to meet it. From Him we 
would learn God's view of Pain, and man's true 
view. 

1. It is not to be indiscriminately set aside. 

When the procession arrived at the place of exe- 
cution the soldiers had offered to our Lord, as to 
the other prisoners, the stupefying drug of wine 
mingled with myrrh, which was mercifully provided 
in all cases. The malefactors eagerly drank of it. 



68 



WORDS FROM THE CROSS. 



This accounts for the snatches of broken sentences, 
the wild cries which they uttered, as the intoxicat- 
ing effect in part wore off. Jesus would not drink 
of it/ He would meet all, see all, bear all with un- 
clouded faculties. He refused the drug. And here- 
in gave an example to us. Not only with regard to 
anodynes and anaesthetics — certainly it is not unnec- 
essary to warn of the great danger and wrong of 
their needless use — but with regard to softness and 
effeminacy in general. We seek to banish all sorrow, 
to distract ourselves from unpleasant thoughts. The 
penitential remembrance of sin is thought by some 
morbid. To tales and sounds of evil we close our 
eyes and ears. We will not think of them. We try 
to divert our minds from painful and disagreeable 
facts of life by the theatre and novels, or by idle busi- 
ness. 

But Pain has an intended use. It is allowed for a 
purpose. Pain is a preservative. It is designed as 
a warning. We feel the burn that we may not be 
consumed. 

In a world not constituted as ours is, Pain and 
Suffering might not be necessary. In our world we 
can see it is. It is a fact of experience, whether we 
can explain it or not, that suffering has a refining, 
ennobling, purifying effect. Without that check I 
might have drifted I know not whither ; I was 
brought to my bearings by suffering. Those lines 
of beauty in the character I revere would not have 



1 S. Mark xv. 23, 



OF PAIK. 



69 



been traced without that discipline. The bereave- 
ments, loss of fortune, failure of health, thwarting 
of plans, desertions — all that seemed so grievous — 
we could not afford to have done without them. 
Looking back we say, It is good for me that I have 
been in trouble." ^ It has deepened my life, de- 
veloped my character. As the outer man has de- 
cayed, the inner man has been renewed ; the loss of 
earthly consolation has developed a deeper spiritual 
thirst, a hunger and thirst after righteousness.'^ So 
we learn to submit to sorrow, to accept discipline. 
Lord, Thou canst and wilt for me far better than 
for myself I either could or would. 

Apart from argument we recognize suffering as 
the Eoyal Eoad, the way the King passed. His 
courtiers would follow Him. We pray Him by His 
Cross and Pain to hallow all suffering, to grant to 
all sufferers to use it rightly. Like every means of 
grace it requires right dispositions for its profitable 
reception. 

2. At the same time there is another side to this 
consideration of suffering suggested by our Lord's 
Word from the Cross. See the perfect balance of 
His example. He says, I thirst." He appeals for 
help. He accepts what one of the soldiers, moved 
with pity, offers — a taste of the sour wine brought for 
their own refreshment.^ Christianity is not Stoicism. 



iPs. cxix. 67, 71. 

2 2 Cor. iv. 16 ; S. Matt. v. 6 ; Isa. Iv. 2. 

3 S. Mark xv. 36 ; S. John xix. 29. 



70 WOEDS FEOM THE CEOSS. 



We may accept lawful aileviatious. We are bidden 
tend the sick and suffering, minister to Him in His 
needy members, to Him in them, to them for Him. 
Here is another gain of sufferiDg. It gives oppor- 
tunity for loving deeds. We look forward to the 
abolition of suffering when sin, from w^hich it 
springs, shall be abolished. Then shall God wipe 
away every tear from every eye.' Meanwhile we do 
our part to alleviate suffering, to exterminate its 
cause. 

Ps. xli. 

Collect, 2d Sunday after Easter. 
Hymn, O Sacred Head." 



^ Eev. xxi. 4. 



VI. 

OF WOEK. 
**It is finislied."— S. John xix. 30. 

1. Man goeth forth to his work and to his labor 
until the evening. The night cometh when no man 
can work. Therefore the Ideal Man so zealously 
set Himself to accomplish the Woi^Jc committed to 
Him. I must work the works of Him that sent Me 
while it is day. Now He could say, I have finished 
the work which thou gavest me to do." ^ 

God has a work for all, for each of us to do ; a 
work to do in our day and circumstances, vnih. our 
gifts and opportunities ; a work, whether it be great 
or little, for which we are fitted by His Wisdom, 
which reacheth from one end to another, mightily 
and sweetly ordering all things.^ This work God 
intends to have an effect on us who do it. It mat- 
ters comparatively little the mark we make on the 
world as we pass through it. The mark the world 
makes on us is of far greater importance. A Napo- 
leon may redistribute the map of Europe ; and the 
divisions may be wiped out like the castles children 
build on the sand by the returning tide. But the 
child has grown stronger by its exercise. And our 
character is developed by our work. Lines for good 



^ S. Joliii ix. 4 ; xvii. 4. 



2 Wisd. viii. 1. 



73 



"WORDS FEOM THE CROSS. 



or evil are traced on our moral being, of ambition or 
of generous self-sacrifice. These marks we carry 
from stage to stage of life, from school to adult life, 
into the married state or the priesthood, aye, into 
the other world. 

2. See the pattern of our Lord's Work, as the 
true Man, from first to last. 

a. The zeal and diligence with which He under- 
takes it. ''Lo, I come to do thy will." '*My meat 
is to do the will of him that sent me, and to accom- 
plish his work." So he enters on His ministry. 
''I have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am 
I straitened till it be accomplished ! " ^ 

6. At the same time the discipline by ivhich His 
work was regulated. He restrains Himself until the 
appointed time, until He is thirty years of age. 
And then He sets His face like a flint, allowing noth- 
ing to divert Him, neither the interference of friends 
nor the dissuasion of enemies.'* 

c. His work is accomplished in spite of every ob- 
stacle — at any cost. Work will cost. In the sweat 
of thy brow shalt thou eat — and break — bread. 

Faint and weary Thou hast souglit me, 
On the Cross of sn:ffering "bought me." ^ 



^ Ps. xl. 9, 10 ; Heb. x. 7 ; S. John iv. 34 ; S. Luke xii. 
50. 

^ S. Luke iii. 23 ; S. John ii. 4; S. Mark iii. 31-33 ; viii. 
32, 33. 

2 S. John iv, 6 ; S. Mark iv. 38 ; Gen. iii. 19. 



OF work:. 



73 



This is His cry : 

** I will ransom tliem from the power of the grave, 
I will redeem them from death : 
O death, I will be thy plagues, 
O grave, I will be thy destruction : 
Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes." ^ 

d. His work is accomplished in the midst of failure. 
It is not success that He sets before Him, but faithful- 
ness. When He gives an account of His ministry, ''I 
have glorified thee on the earth," He says. How ? "I 
have accomplished the work which thou gavest me 
to do. Of those whom thou gavest me, I have lost 
none, save the son of perdition." None through any 
fault of Mine, only him who would not be kept.^ 
His obedience and faithfulness were manifested in 
the midst of external, seeming failure. The loud 
victorious cry, It is finished," tells of His obedience 
even unto death, of His triumph over spiritual foes. 
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
pride of life are trampled under foot. The Seed of 
the "Woman has bruised the serpent's head at the ex- 
pense of the bruising of His own heel in the com- 
bat.' 

3. Can we echo our Lord's word ? Have we so 
done, are we so doing, the work given to us, with- 
out and within ? 

Without, not self-chosen work, but the work 
marked out for us — in our family, in society, in busi- 



1 Hos. xiii. 14. ^S. John xvii. 4, 12. ' Gen. iii. 15. 



74 



WOEDS FEOM THE CEOSS. 



ness employments, in deeds of charity, whether cor- 
poral or spiritual — patiently, perseveringly perform- 
ing all such good works as God has prepared that 
we should walk in ? 

"Within, fighting out temptations, seeking to bring 
every thought into captivity to the obedience of 
Christ; saying, ^'I will follow upon mine enemies 
and overtake them, neither will I turn again until I 
have destroyed them? " ^ 

So would we arm ourselves with the same mind 
that was in Christ — not to do the same things, but 
to do whatever He appoints for us, after His exam- 
ple and in His spirit. 

Ps. cxlii. 

Collect in Order for Visitation of the Sick, 
''Prayer which may be said in behalf of all pres- 
ent." 

Hymn, Battle Song, ''Jesus, Master, King of 
Glory." 



1 2 Cor. X. 5 ; Ps. xviii. 37. 



GOD'S EEGAKD OF MAN AND MAN'S OF 
GOD. 

" Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." — S. Luke 
xxiii. 46. 

We have considered God's view and man's true 
view, the true Man's view, of Sinners, Penitents, 
Friends, of Sin, of Pain, of Work. There is not 
much else to view — saving one another. And this 
is what we have put before us, expressed in the last 
Word from the Cross — God's vieio of man and man's 
view of God, 

1. God and man are at last at one again. The 
At-one-ment is effected. God has won man back 
to Himself. The estrangement was on man's side. 
God was yearning over His fallen creature. His 
prodigal son. He devised means that His ban- 
ished should not be expelled from Him.^ " God so 
loved the world, that he gave his Only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but should have eternal life.^ The exhibition 
of God's love in the Incarnation and the Passion has 
drawn man with the cords of a man, with the bands 
of love, has softened man's heart/ 



1 2 Sam. xiv. 14. 



2 S. John iii. 16. 



^ Hos. xi. 4. 



76 WOBDS PEOM THE CEOSS. 



Moreover, redemption from the power of evil, from 
the bondage of sin, has been effected. The bands 
are snapped ; the foes trodden down. Jesus has 
made peace by the blood of His Cross. ^ So in the 
person of the Eepresentative Man, the Second Adam, 
redeemed Humanity utters this word, ^'Father, into 
Thy hands I commend my spirit." 

2. And God accepts man, his obedience proved, 
in this his Eepresentative. " This," he says, is My 
beloved Son, in Whom I am indeed well pleased." ^ 
God delights in this spotless offering of Christ, per- 
fected through suffering ; not in the suffering, but 
in the love which was willing to suffer, in the per- 
fection which the discipline of suffering has brought 
about.^ Pleading our oneness with Him, our Head 
and Leader, we pray : 

Look, Father, look on His anointed Face, 
And only look on ns as found in Him ; 

Look not on our misusings of Thy grace, 
Our prayer so languid and our faitli so dim ; 

For lo, between our sins and tlieir reward 
We set tlie Passion of Thy Son our Lord." * 

So does God regard man in Christ, reconciled by 
Him, accepted in the Beloved." He has made rec- 
onciliation for iniquity, made an end of sin, brought 
in everlasting righteousness." ^ 



1 Col. i. 20. 2 Matt. iii. 17. ^ Heb. ii. 10. 

*Dr. Bright's Eucharistio Hymn, **And now, O Father, 
mindful of the love." 
5 Eph. i. 6 ; Dan. ix. 24. 



god's regaed of mak. 



77 



For a small moment have I forsaken thee ; 
But with great mercies will I gather thee. 
In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment ; 
But with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, 
Saith the Lord thy Redeemer." ^ 

3. Man's regard of God, ours, must correspond 
with this. My Beloved is mine, and I am His." ^ 
Man can again call God his Father^ for he is ready 
to surrender himself in trustful, loving obedience as 
His son. Can we ? For this we keep Good Friday. 
Without this Good Friday would be vain. It would 
be no Good Friday for us. We will then make this 
Word of Christ's our own. If we cannot do so now, 
we \n\\ fight it out, and put away whatever hinders. 
And then in this trustful surrender we will be at 
peace. 

Come what may, joy or sorrow, success or fail- 
ure, sickness or health, life or death — ''Into Thy 
Hands I commend my spirit." I fled from Thee as 
a sinner ; I commend myself to Thee as a penitent. 
*'I commend mj spirit" — my inmost being; when 
I have nothing else to commend, when all else is 
stripped from me — money, friends, earthly goods. 
Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked 
return I to my Father's hands. Only I return con- 
scious. What awaits me I know not, care not ; 
the employment of the intermediate state, the nat- 
ure of the purification through which I hope there 



1 Isa. liv. 7, 8. 



2 Cant. ii. 16. 



78 



WORDS FROM THE CROSS. 



to be perfected for the fulness of His joy — I know 
not and care not. It is my Father "^ho will deal 
with me. " Father, into Thy hands I commend my 
spirit." 

Ps. xxxi. 1-6. 

Collect, 1st for Good Friday. 
Hymn, *'The sun is sinking fast." 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



Sermons and Tracts, 

Cts. 

The Words from and to the Cross, Medita- 
tions 60 

Gospel Woes (Lent Lectures) 60 

Self Discipline, Lenten Addresses 25 and 60 

Meditations on The Life of S. John the 

Evangelist 25 

The Saintly Life, Notes for Meditation on the 

Epistle to the Philippians 25 

Concerning Christ and the Church, A Devo- ' 
tional Exposition of the Epistle to the Ephe- 

sians 60 

Meditations on the Creed.. , , , 50 

Lord's Prayer 50 

Example OF THE Passion 35 

Collects (1. Advent to Trin- 
ity) 60 

" (2. Trinity Season 

and Saints' Days) 60 

Exposition of the Gospel Canticles 50 

Reasonable Faith, Four Sermons on Funda- 
mental Christian Doctrines 20 

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture 10 

Reading the Bible 5 

Catholic not Protestant nor Roman Catholic . . 15 

Apostolic Succession 10 

The Eucharistic Sacrifice 10 

Confession 10 

The Christian Law Concerning Marriage and 

Divorce 10 

Prayers for the Departed, 5c. ; The Communion 
OF Saints, 5c.; Christian Friendship, 10c. ; 
Retreats, 5c.; Fasting Communion, 5c.; 
Hints for Lent, 5c. ; Fasting, 5c. 



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